Israel Breslow Dead at 79

July 30, 1985

NEW YORK (Jul. 29)

Funeral services will be held here Thursday for Israel Breslow, president of the Jewish Forward Association-WEVD and former president of the Workmen’s Circle, the major Jewish fraternal-cultural organization. He died yesterday of heart disease. He was 79 years old.

Breslow retired from the labor movement in 1975 after 17 years of service as a vice president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).

Born near Kiev, Russia, he emigrated via Canada to the United States in 1922 and became active in the garment industry as a worker. He eventually rose in the union ranks to become an official and in 1976 he was a United States delegate from the ILGWU to labor conferences in this country and abroad.

Breslow took part in the founding, along with the late David Dubinsky, who was the longtime ILGWU president, of the Jewish Labor Committee. He also helped found the Liberal Party of New York with which he broke after the ILGWU left the Liberal Party.

Breslow served on the board of YIVO, was a member of the Atran Foundation, and was active in the Jewish Socialist Farband, Social-Democrats U.S.A. and the League for Industrial Democracy until the time of his death.